 And as always, I can give a little introduction to those who are new. So today, we're going to start with a movie with David. And then we're going to, after the movie, we're going to have some breakout groups where we can talk about what came up for us during the movie. And then finally, we're going to have a closing session later today where we can go deeper into all of those things and emotions that came up. So right now, I'll pass it over to you, David. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Welcome, everyone. Glad to see you here. What a beautiful global movie gathering this is. We I was just looking at all the different countries. And so it's great that we can watch a healing movie together. Sprinkled all over the globe and start to feel our our hearts open. And a smile come onto our face and some joy bubbling up in our hearts and laughter coming out of us because that's natural. It's natural to be a happy child of God. And it's very unnatural to experience guilt and sadness and sorrow and anger and all of the emotions that the ego sponsors. So the ego made quite an intricate deception to fool us and to keep us from remembering who we are. But I always like to remember that God's will for us is perfect happiness and that we know who we are in the environment that was created for us. And that environment is spirit. So we were created in spirit and from spirit. And we have our life and our meaning in spirit. And then the world could be seen as the desert lost and wandering in the desert of the unreal. That's what Morpheus calls it on in the Matrix movie, the first Matrix movie. He tells Neo welcome to the desert of the unreal. And so these dreams of unreality are nothing more than fictitious imaginings in a mind that is full of fear and guilt and therefore is just witnessing the fear and the guilt that it believes in. But the good news is is Jesus said you made the ego and now you can unmake it. You think you sinned but you made a mistake and the mistake has already been corrected. And now we're about the business of accepting the correction. Which involves undoing the ego, undoing the guilt, undoing the fear. And for some of you that are following along the Course in Miracles workbook lessons, one lesson for every day of the year, today's workbook lesson, we're on the 100th day of the year. Happy 100 everyone. We're on the 100th day of our undoing the ego and awakening this year. And this morning I was very touched by a paragraph that's in our lesson 100. And I think this is a good reminder from Jesus as we go into today's movie because it has to do with our happiness and our joy. And sometimes we just need to be reminded about the joy and the happiness. And this movie will really help you with that today. We've shown some pretty intense movies but you're going to be kind of transported into the miracle today and then we'll go even deeper into the healing so that you can start to feel that joy and happiness in a more consistent way so it starts to become your consistent state of mind. And that's what spiritual awakening is about. That's why the Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy and the Holy Spirit needs happy learners to learn the joyous lessons of forgiveness. So here's the paragraph that I read. Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. I'll say that again. Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad your part is unfulfilled and all the world is thus deprived of joy along with you. God asks you to be happy so the world can see how much he loves his son and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy. No fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God's messenger today. You bring his happiness to all you look upon. His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees his message in your happy face. That's pretty clear and direct. That's pretty direct that Jesus wants us to be happy. He wants us to be joyful and he wants our brothers and sisters to see our happy face and know how much God loves his son. If you were going to talk about Easter and resurrection that paragraph is that one fits right in now. Go all of you to the to the world as messengers of me. Jesus was sending the apostles and the messengers out before he disappeared and ascended back to the Father. And this is really what the message is. You are to be happy. That's natural for you. You are to be joyful and you are to be a witness of that happiness so that everyone knows that God is love. When we aren't happy we're not really witnessing that God is love. We're witnessing that we believe we don't know God or we we don't know what love is when we feel the sadness and the sorrow and the guilt. So this week you voted on themes and as usual I looked at the English poll and the Spanish poll and the combined and really just prayed and prayed on a movie that would really touch on all the themes that that you voted on from the very top ones all the way down to numbers four and five. The top three themes that came up this week for us to dive into together were one letting go of outcomes and turning within and and that is one theme but you can see there's two aspects you do have to let go of wanting outcomes in the world if you want to turn within so it really works very well together there. And the second one is looking for the error versus seeing the miracle. Are you going to be a fault finder? Are you going to be a mistake finder? You don't even get any brownie points in heaven for finding mistakes. Sometimes in a world where diagnosis seems to be so important you know some people think well Jesus I'm doing pretty good I'm discovering a lot of mistakes and it's like no you don't get the points you don't get the rewards for finding the mistakes you get the reward for for seeing the miracle for being in a miracle state of mind. That's where all the rewards come in and they're all spiritual in nature so don't you know when you say are there going to be any material rewards for all my mind training effort. I have a friend who lives in Singapore and he's always writing you know when am I going to see the rewards and where are the benefits. I said well we hang in there with the mind training and then the rewards are quite obvious when you feel happy and peaceful and joyful consistently then you are in the rewards you are getting your immediate rewards right there but they're spiritual in nature. They're state of mind in nature you know don't think that more money equates to anything don't think that less money equates to anything more possessions less possessions you know these things of the world are not really rewards at all they're distractions it's your state of mind where you find the abundance and peace and joy and happiness left are truly truly abundant so the third one is not running away from strong emotions and I can see why that that got a lot of votes that got 49 votes because the the intense emotions are are at times very difficult to face and that's why there's so many distractions and addictions that seem to be in the world but really are just in the mind. Judgment is the central distraction from the peace of God and that judgment can seem to take on many different attractive or alluring forms but actually once you see that you don't want the judgment and that you only want the guidance of the Holy Spirit then the attraction to judgment disappears because judgment is attack and you want to reach a state of mind that transcends attack entirely but that can see the impossibility of attack and then two other themes that we will actually see also in this movie are letting go of responsibility we've talked to many times about when you when you take responsibility for the things of time and space it's actually arrogant because Jesus is saying you're responsible for your state of mind and you're responsible for listening and following the Holy Spirit and the instructions of the Holy Spirit and ultimately you only have one responsibility and that's to accept the Atonement accept the correction that the Holy Spirit is has already given to your mind it's already there the correction the light is already there and your one responsibility is to accept that correction that requires a lot of undoing around the concept of responsibility because we have believed we're responsible responsible for the body for other bodies responsibility for children responsibility for finances responsibility for providing both physically and emotionally for people and all of that is part of a web of deception that the ego has made to keep you from accepting the Atonement and realizing you're divinely innocent so this movie also will approach that theme as well and then the last one is feeling controlled by the world world that is part of a general sense of being believing that you've been victimized by an external world and that this external world whether it's parents families partners governments or various cultures even if you believe you were born in a repressive culture or maybe why was I born into a kind of a male dominated perverse culture how did that happen well the victimization mentality is part of the the belief that you can separate from God and then when you project that belief in abuse abandonment betrayal onto the world then you just put pin it onto different characters you say the father did this to me the mother did this to me my society did this to me and you just remain in a victim mentality and will seem to suffer and die even though that's just part of a of a of a belief system that has no reality if your mind believes in it then you actually do experience those feelings you feel hurt you feel sad you feel powerless and helpless if you believe in the ego those kind of feelings are inevitable results of believing in something that God didn't create God has nothing to do with any of those feelings but if you believe it then then you will perceive it and you will even say that you have a history of it and you can tell people your stories of what happened to you and when it happened to you and how it happened to you and none of those stories really have anything to do with reality so today's movie I have shown this a number of times and I really enjoy this movie I really adore this movie because it initially takes you into the state of wonder and wonder isn't that the what's the German word for miracle what is it wonder or something wonder wonder into the wonder today I take you into the wonder you know the wonder is miracle and and this movie is to the wonder to the miracle is the way I interpret this and I like it because that's how the movie starts off it takes us on a ride with the cinematography with the the playfulness with the joy with the laughter of what seemed to be two characters that are falling in love in in Paris France it's a a Ukrainian woman in the movie Marina and Neil an American man who are seeming to have a seeming to fall in love in Paris and Paris pretty much has a reputation as a very romantic city so good place to go into the wonder under the Eiffel Tower why not if you're if God's going to get your attention that's not bad Paris Paris so so we have marina and we have Neil and we have this love relationship that's opening up and then and then marina has a daughter a 10-year-old daughter Tatiana and so she's right there too she's getting swept up into the wonder and and then that they actually go on on a trip together and it's it's quite mystical it's it's actually it's actually if you just let your mind and you give it over to all these beautiful scenes and the playfulness I have to say this this is truly a movie where Ben Affleck doesn't have a lot to say in the miracle this is not Batman or he's not fighting Superman it's like the Holy Spirit's got him and and this this woman Olga is the the name of the actress that plays her but you know it's like getting swept up into the joy and happiness and laughter and playfulness of the miracle this is important because you will need the confidence of the miracle to carry you to transcend the ego this is why it's called a course in miracles because you need lots of miracles and you need quite consistent experience of miracles to be able to be lifted above the battleground of this world unless you become a very willing miracle worker unless you really welcome the miracle and you are so tuned in with Jesus and so tuned in with Jesus and say here we go Jesus another day of working miracles let's have at it let's shine this light for all the world to see let's radiate this love for all the world to see unless you fully get into the miracle working function then you won't really experience the full strength of the right mind and the miracle that that is being offered you won't reach the consistent happiness and joy unless you become consistently a miracle worker and I I mean that your day begins and ends and is filled with miracles that that is the most natural experience you can have with relationship to this earth so if there's a part of your mind that's going I don't know I don't I don't think of myself as a miracle worker I can relate I didn't either I when I first got into this I thought why did you choose me of all people are you sure are you sure you want to to have miracles come through me because I I actually doubted that that was really what Jesus wanted and and Jesus was quite sure about that he said oh you are you are ready because that was one of my biggest concerns am I really ready for this and he says he assured me yes you are you are ready and you don't have to worry about it he says because now I'm going to perform the miracles through you it's not going to be coming from you but it's going to be coming through you so just enjoy the ride so I said okay well all right then let's let's go and in this movie we have a period of of just joy and happiness that just is just so beautiful and so soft and that's important because then when when Neo and Marina move move back he invites her to come to the United States where he lives in Oklahoma wow what a what a ride to come from Ukraine to Paris to Oklahoma wow that's that's a real trip you know you're going from from Ukraine to Eiffel Tower to cows and bulls and farms and cowboys cowgirls that's a that's an interesting movement in the self-concept and then there's still much joy but there's going to be I would say when they reach Oklahoma then we're going to start to see the unconscious comes up and this is pretty much how it goes when you work with A Course in Miracles you you go through some very miraculous phases where you might say it's your honeymoon experience with Course in Miracles and that honeymoon experience is actually very important it shouldn't be this dismissed or downplayed at all because it's very important to get a taste a really good taste of how wonderful God's love is and you will need that taste you believe me you will need that taste as you go forward in the Manual for Teachers Jesus talks about six stages of the development of trust and four of the six are challenging and they are difficult two-thirds of the stages that you will go through are challenging and difficult and that's another reason why you need this miracle phase you need the you need the honeymoon because you have to be able to go on beyond the honeymoon and go for the happy dream and you have to go toward the light towards eternity you will never be completely happy and no perfect happiness until the experience of eternity but actually the movement towards the light and eternity is extremely important so I like this movie because you get to go into the honeymoon phase of happiness that's very miraculous and then the unconscious will come up it's kind of like in Star Wars you know what was the name of the one the empire strikes back remember Darth Vader and that's he goes in the subconscious mind like oh you're pretty happy there look like you're pretty happy the empire strikes back you know Darth Vader you know that that dark kind of that's what's coming you know this black thing that just you hear it's breathing when you're in the honeymoon phase you know you don't even know that there is a Darth Vader you just they're like this is cool this is great I want this to stay forever and you don't really know that you're just in a honeymoon phase with the course until these unconscious serpents of expectations start to come up like it's like your mind is going now this is happiness and I wanted to stay just like this I want everybody to just freeze I'm happy now so just freeze don't move stay just the way you are because I'm happy but see that's not the way it works you're not happy because they are in your life or they're just witnesses they're just symbols I just posted something on Facebook I believe it was a quote from Albert Einstein it's like if you if you want to be happy don't don't put your your faith into people and places put it in a goal and Jesus even tells us that our goal is forgiveness and so if you're going to invest in anything invest in forgiveness invest in the miracle invest in being shown to see the false is false don't think that some idols can bring you happiness and if you get the right configuration of idols that you found happiness because that's what the ego is trying to get you to do it will use even the honeymoon phase to say now look at you you've got it made you've got just what you need you've got just the right configuration to have happiness but it doesn't tell you that it's just a configuration of images and idols that it has constructed as a god substitute to find a substitute for divine happiness in heaven on earth in terms of this little configuration and and so in the movie you know we're going to find that our our marina neo tatiana they come over to oklahoma and that's when the empire strikes back meaning the ego will start coming up into awareness and and what will it play out as well first of all if you come to the united states from another country and you you're in having a great time and everything there's this there's this tiny little thing called visas it's a tiny little thing you know it can Darth Vader where's your visa just when you're like la la la la la for today hey you just you're just starting to get happy you've got you've got a happy little trio there marina neo and tatiana and then visas and then the other thing that's great about this movie is aside from interpersonal relationships in which happiness is sought another relationship is an interesting one is a priest relationship with god so we we have we have a priest here in oklahoma he's like the he's they're like minister and and he's struggling with his relationship with god so wow those two kinds of relationships a couple and a family relationships and struggles and a priest struggling in his relationship with god that covers a lot we have two main stereotypes or uh archetypes of relationship there and and then to complicate the the male female relationships always the ego uses time you know just when you think oh we've got our own perfect little configuration here then if soon as trouble arises there's this thing called the past and trying to compare to past relationship an old flame will show up into the picture just to help dismantle the whole thing because because truly love is not interpersonal and really love is not personal and like with the priest to god it's the undoing of the personal it's the undoing of the mask jesus says in the course whatever you want to come of a relationship can and will hurt you wow you know that that's that the least romantic idea you've ever heard in your life whatever you want to come of a relationship will hurt you not may hurt you will when jesus says will he means will meaning if you have expectations of anything in form anything in form or a partner or anyone any role or partner you will experience hurt because you're looking outside of yourself your capital self your christ self you're looking outside of your capital self for meaning for fulfillment for love and jesus is saying it will not work he says seek not outside yourself for it will fail and you will weep each time an idol falls but we're going to see that acted out in this movie going from la la la miracle miracle honey moon honey moon and then and then the wheels are going to fall off and and that's just the way that it goes it's not it's not going that way because there's not healing happening because there is the purpose of of a partner is to witness to you the thoughts in your mind people are thoughts and if whatever you're thinking about a person or a body is what you're thinking about yourself and that mind has to be emptied of all those people thoughts that mind has to be emptied of all those private thoughts of all the judgments that were made to take the place of the christ and of god's love so this movie is very very good healing movie because it it takes us into the miracle and then it shows us that we still have to go much deeper and and we're prepared for that that's why this movie is so good when you watch it it's it's like you're saying to jesus just give it to me straight just honestly show me what it is that i have to look at to find lasting peace and lasting happiness and that's really an answer to a prayer whenever you're shown that what you believe about this world is blocking you from the light then you're more willing to question what you believe you're more willing to really question what is it that i do believe here